- deepen your connection and relationship with another
- because you are attracted to the other person
- to commit to a person more
- to show your love for and to the other person
- for fun
- because it feels good/for pleasure
- because you love that person
- because you are curious
- because you need affection and to feel loved
- because you feel you have to
- because you are pressured
- to get back at another person that hurt you
- to relieve stress
- to not connect to your feelings
- to connect to your feelings and how you feel towards another
- because you do not want to be seen as frigid
- because you are bored
- to boost how you feel about yourself
- to have an orgasm
- to fit in with peers – because friends are in sexual relationships or having sex
These are only a few reasons and you may think of many more. But what we can see here is the difference in some of the reasons. There are some positive reasons in wanting to have sex but also some negative reasons.
For example, never ever EVER should anyone feel pressured into having sex with someone
(this also highlights the importance of being able to say no which we will explore later).
When asking yourself why you want to have sex and you realise it’s not a supportive or positive reason. STOP! Re-evaluate the relationship, why you are in it or why you are seeking something that’s not supporting. It’s better to not do anything than to do something and have regret or hurts later.
Is there a difference in genders and what’s felt about sex?
Could it be that for boys’ sex is more first out of curiosity, to fit in with peers, or to feel good about themselves where for girls it is more about wanting connection or to feel they are loved and taken care of?
WOW!
So, where do we go from here then? If different genders (or the same gender) want different things?
Testimonials from boys and young men:
TESTIMONIAL: ‘As a young boy I felt that I could not be sensitive. To feel and express my feelings was not something I was encouraged to do but more to just get on with it.
No one asked how I felt so I grew up not being able to communicate what I was feeling. When I came into puberty and my sexuality started to unfold and porn was a remedy for the difficulty of dealing with feelings and the need for closeness.
I learned to channel my feelings into sex/porn. For me the longing for tenderness and intimacy and wanting sex somehow became one and the same. Intimacy and sexuality became so intertwined that I didn´t know any different. In hindsight I can say that porn desensitized me.
Not that I lost my sensitivity as such but because porn was my remedy to help me deal with my insecurity as a young man when it came to feelings and intimacy, I became numb and would feel even further away from myself. Porn and sex became an addiction, a substitute for truly close and nurturing relationships with people in general and especially with a girl.
I had good friendships, but I was lonely inside, I was starving intimacy with myself and others. It became part of life, like any other habit only not a good one’.
TESTIMONIAL: ‘I didn’t think sex was anything special, so didn’t plan who I would lose my virginity to. But now I regret it and can feel it is something special and wish this was with a different person than the person I did it with.’
TESTIMONIAL: ‘There are no really sweet girls out there. I have not found a girl I want to be with.’
The testimonials from above show us that if we learn not to express our feelings at a young age, this affects our relationships with others in the future and of course, it affects the relationship with ourselves.
They also show us that boys and young men are actually innately tender and sweet, but when this is not nurtured, like with all of us, we lose touch of this aspect of ourselves, including how to communicate what we truly feel.
So, could the remedy be for us to start to express our feelings more?
Even if it seems awkward, clumsy, silly or not cool! What have we got to lose? Nothing! BUT we have everything to gain in no longer capping or holding back how we feel. The more we start to express how we feel, the easier it becomes and the more we will feel the magic in our lives when we start to do this.
